New Harry Potter movie sets world opening record

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The latest “Harry Potter” movie cast a $104 million spell over worldwide box offices during its first day in theaters, setting a new record for the boy wizard, distributor Warner Bros Pictures said on Thursday.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth in the film series based on the popular books by J.K. Rowling, grossed $58.18 million in North America and $45.85 million overseas on Wednesday, the Time Warner Inc-owned studio said.

The U.S.-Canadian tally, which includes a record $22.2 million from midnight showings, marks the second-biggest Wednesday opening domestically.

Only last month’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” scored a bigger midweek first-day gross, with $62 million in domestic ticket sales on Wednesday June 24, according to Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.

<p>Director David Yates on the set of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". REUTERS/Warner Bros. Pictures/Handout</p>

“Quite simply, we owe this record-breaking opening to the remarkable fans who have stood by us and who stood in line to be among the first to see ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,'” Warner Bros President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said in a statement.

Slideshow (9 Images)

Said Dergarabedian: “This is a tremendous opening. It’s in the box office stratosphere.”

The previous “Harry Potter” movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” also opened on a Wednesday last year with first-day domestic receipts of $44.2 million. That film went on to gross $937 million worldwide.

The first five films in the franchise, one of the most lucrative in Hollywood history, have so far taken in about $4.5 billion collectively at the global box office.